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Ala. officials want AMC employees to make move

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Convincing federal employees to leave their homes in the Washington area for the unknown in Huntsville hasn’t been easy, but it was a little simpler in the most recent BRAC recruiting trip.

Thirty representatives from across the Tennessee Valley spent two days recently at Fort Belvoir, Va., answering questions and extolling the virtues of life here to workers with the Army Materiel Command and two smaller contracting commands.

AMC headquarters is in the process of relocating to Redstone Arsenal via a 2005 decision of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

“It was the best reception we’ve ever had,” said Huntsville attorney Joe Ritch, who serves as chair of the Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee. “The employees couldn’t have been more receptive, and the leadership couldn’t have been any nicer.”

Ritch said during the three presentations made over two days, 180 federal workers who could move to Huntsville with the relocations of their commands were reached.

Since the 2005 BRAC decision was announced, Ritch said it was believed that 15 to 25 percent of the six commands — with a total of 4,700 people — would relocate from the D.C area to Redstone. But with this group of employees most recently approached, “I’d said 50 to 60 percent of them seem predisposed to move,” Ritch said.

“They asked the kind of questions of people who have done their homework, who know what they want,” he said. “Some want mountains, some want lakes, some want to live in more of a city setting. And we had the people there who could tell them all about it.”

As to why this group of employees was more open-minded, Ritch said it could be because the D.C.-area housing market is improving somewhat, so federal workers might be more inclined to consider selling and relocating.

“And they’ve had a bitterly cold winter,” Ritch said, referring to record snowfall and frigid weather. “Maybe the south sounds good right now.”

Ritch said as of March 1, 398 AMC positions had been filled at Redstone, with 276 employees coming from outside the Huntsville area and 122 locally.

Another 956 remain to be transferred.

Ritch said 118 positions with the Expeditionary Contracting Command will move to Redstone, and another 207 with the Army Contracting Command, both subordinate commands of AMC.

Of all the BRAC positions that have been filled, Ritch said 55 percent have come from “out of the area,” both transfers and new hires.

“We’re happy about that,” he said. “Ideally, we don’t want existing local employees to take the BRAC jobs, because then their company has to go recruiting. These are good numbers for us.”

Besides the recruiting trips the Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee makes, Ritch said the various commands “are aggressively recruiting.”

“I think we’ll have everyone we need by the time we need them,” he said.